Imagine you are a composer tasked with creating the score for a new movie. You have about 100 minutes of time to fill and your music must enhance what is happening on the screen. Now, imagine that movie is 20+ hours long! This is the challenge that faces video game music composers. They must create a cohesive score that enhances the player’s experience over a huge amount of time.
I have been playing video games my whole life – since a relative introduced me to Frogger on the PlayStation at age four. I think of this medium in the same way I think of books, films, television – an art form through which I can experience something new. Compelling storytelling, emotional depth, and a sense of adventure are hallmarks I look for in all forms of entertainment, and video games are no exception.
Many people think of arcade boxes and mindless shoot-em-up games when they think of video games. And while these have their own entertainment value, there has been an expansion in video game genres over the last couple of decades. The music we will feature during our upcoming BTPM Classical Video Game Music Weekend covers many of these genres: detective noir, fantasy, drama, science fiction, and more. I hope that by highlighting this incredible catalog of music, we can demonstrate that video games can be works of art, just like other forms of media.
If you are interested in learning more about Ludomusicology – the study of video game music – I recommend this article from the Journal of Sound and Music in Games. It’s a great overview of the inception of this field of research, and its place in academic discourse.
Join us for BTPM Classical Video Game Music Weekend, March 21-23, 2025.
